Machinery

Complaints, allegations, accusations
Meetings, arrests, transfers
Examinations, histories, admissions
Confinements
And rehabilitations

Submissions
Appeals, listings, publications
Deadlines, schedules, files
Evidence, testimonies
Courts, tribunals, rulings —
And remediations

Analyses, recesses, conclusions
Findings, determinations —
And judgements

Conduct or misconduct
Guilty or not guilty
Safe or dangerous
Criminal, insane, or sane

Every single day —
Every single hour
For centuries —
All around the world
Like animals dragged into pens
To the slaughterhouse
A bundle of blame is hung
Around someone’s neck —

The sludge, the bile, the waste, the rot
Byproducts
Of the machinery of bureaucracy —
Of laws, rules and regulators
Of judges, fellows, members —
Their pronouncements, conclusions
And high opinions

Who carries
The weight of justice —
The judged
Or the judge

What is crushed by the machinery
The grain —
Or the gears that grind it down